Twitter revealed to Congressional lawmakers this week that Russian bots, or automated accounts, retweeted the president nearly 470,000 times during the final weeks of the presidential election. The company had reported that it has identified 201 accounts linked to Russian interference efforts.
The company says the retweeting activity took place between September 1 and November 15, 2016. By contrast, the same accounts retweeted the president’s challenger Hillary Clinton less than 50,000 times, Twitter said.
The written statements were a follow up to a November 1 hearing in which Twitter, along with fellow tech giants Google and Facebook, were heavily criticized for their lack of response to Russian influence efforts during the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook also submitted responses this week and said it had identified 129 events created by pages linked to Russian actors looking to spread disinformation during the election.